Doji Akatsuki
by tigressRising
Summary: Nobody just comes out of nowhere. Even villains have pasts, dreams, families, stories. This is Doji's.


"Excuse me, master."

"Yes Merci?"

"The battle videos for this week's tournaments have been collected. They are on your computer now."

"Thank you very much, Merci. I'll look at them right now."

"Of course, master."

Doji took a sip of orange juice from his wine glass as he brought the videos up on his computer screen. He always reviewed battles from point tournaments to find strong bladers who might choose to join the Dark Nebula – or who might pose a threat to the organization. Doji nearly choked on his juice when he saw who the focus of one video was.

A boy with red eyes and yellow bangs in front of his brown hair – he looked no older than the age of thirteen years – launched his bey into an obstacle course. "Chase after them Cyber!" the boy commanded. A red-hued bey crashed through traffic cones with surprising ease. (It was doubly surprising to Doji, when he remembered the cones were weighted to prevent such a thing from occurring.) The Cyber bey then climbed up a ramp and onto a wooden bridge, destroying all opponents in its way (as well as the bridge behind it) and placing it in second. The only bey left in front of it now was – Doji nearly did a double take when he saw this. Yes, the bey was Flame Sagittario, bey of Kenta Yumiya, friend of Gingka Hagane. Cyber closed in on Sagittario, intending to finish it off, and Doji unconsciously forward in his seat to see the anticipated result. To Doji's disappointment however, Sagittario managed to escape to the side and avoid defeat.

But now Cyber was the one in the lead. The red bey shot off the bridge and onto a series on hills, where its amazing power was turned against it. Doji winced as Cyber bounced around and around helplessly while it tried to escape. Meanwhile, Sagittario managed to weave its way through the hills and retake the lead.

The final obstacle was a huge waterfall. Beys had to climb it in order to reach the finish line. Sagittario was already halfway up before Cyber reached the waterfall. The bey was going as fast as it could, but it looked like Sagittario was going to win. Or at least, it did until the first log fell. Not even Kenta's Special Move could destroy it, and slowly Sagittario was being pushed back down.

Cyber shot up the waterfall towards Sagittario. Doji smirked. Surely, after seeing his opponent struggle with the log, Cyber's blader would seize the opportunity and knock Sagittario out, thus claiming the win for himself. To Doji's shock, however, that wasn't what happened. Instead Cyber was – Doji's hand tightened around his wine glass at the sight. Cyber was actually _helping_ Sagittario, and together the two beys pushed the log upstream. Then a second log fell, and then a third. Now _both_ beys were being pushed back in their race for the top. _That's what he gets for not taking his chance_, Doji thought grimly.

"I've had enough of this!" Cyber's blader growled. "Cyber, Avalanche Boost!" Suddenly Cyber shot into the sky with more power than it could possibly have left, leaving a glowing red trail in its wake. The bey climbed higher and higher until the cameras lost track of it. _Just how high did it go?_ Doji wondered.

One minute passed. Then two. Doji was beginning to doubt that it would ever come back down when something flashed on-screen. A second later Cyber crashed to earth just a foot away from the starting line.

Doji paused the video. He didn't want to see the rest of it. He didn't need to. All the same, he had to hear it from someone else, just to be sure he wasn't imagining things… "Merci," Doji croaked out, the wine glass in his hand beginning to crack from how tightly he was holding it. "Merci, what is the name of this boy?"

"The boy's name is Sora Akatsuki, master," the accented voice of Merci replied. "Are you feeling alright, Master Doji? The boy's battle video seems to have affected you."

"It is absolutely none of your business!" Doji snapped. The wine shattered into a thousand pieces. Doji muttered obscenities under his breath as he picked glass shards out of his palm. "Should I call for the butler, Master Doji?"

"No Merci, I can take care of this myself," Doji called out. It was true; he always had a desk drawer filled with bandages for the times when he pricked himself on a cactus. "Merci, just – go check up on our bladers. Tsubasa's been acting suspiciously lately. I want a closer eye on him. And of course I want a status report on Ryuga."

"Yes, master." Doji could almost hear the bow in those words. While he knew that Merci was not truly gone – the AI monitored all of the Dark Nebula HQ through the security cameras – he liked giving orders. It made him feel in control.

Doji fumbled for the bandages and took care of his hand. The cleaning service could come in later to take care of the mess, he decided. It was a small stain anyways. No use crying over spilt juice. The head of the Dark Nebula Organization sat back in his chair and gave an uneasy glance towards the paused screen. Sora Akatsuki. It has been a long time since Doji had last seen him.

Doji's gaze flickered to the corner of the room. After angling his body away from Merci's cameras, he reached inside his suit for the item he always kept in the hidden pocket in his shirt, over his heart. He didn't trust to leave it anywhere else. Carefully Doji removed a small photograph. In the photo were three people, two adults and a young boy. One of the adults was Doji himself, albeit eight years younger. The other was a woman the same age as Doji was in the picture, with white skin, white hair, red eyes, and a gentle smile – an albino, yet Doji still found her beautiful.

Doji's finger trailed down to the space between the two's legs, where a young boy of five stood. _He has his mother's eyes,_ Doji thought wistfully. The boy's hair was still yellow like Doji's had been before he moved to Japan – Sora hadn't started dying his hair until he was ten.

Doji let one corner of his mouth creep upwards in a half-smile. When he was Sora's age, he would have never guessed where he'd end up now…

Doji had grown up in the dry deserts of the Midwest in the United States as Doji Akatsuki. The desert was practically in his backyard, with sand and cacti being some of his early memories. He recalled pricking his fingers every time he rescued his bey from a cactus whenever it lost control on the shifting sands. He hated the way his blood would come up in tiny beads from the wounds, but it also fueled his desire to excel at beyblade, to succeed where others would fail.

_(Even now he still kept at least three cacti in his office and pricked his fingers on them almost daily, it reminded him of his resolve, it eased the homesickness, it was a daily ritual, old habits die hard.)_

Though he was born with blond hair and blue eyes like his American mother, he got his narrow eyes and last name from his Japanese father. This was before mixed children were socially accepted in society, so while other children played baseball and climbed trees, he studied his textbooks and practiced with the Dark Wolf bey his father had given him on his 6th birthday. It was better this way, he always told himself. He preferred to be a lone wolf than to mindlessly follow the pack. Beyblade hadn't become popular outside of Japan yet, so he had no one to battle against anyways. Wake up, go to school, study alone, finish homework alone, train alone, watch the sunset alone, eat dinner, go to bed, repeat. Every day was the same as the last, and would be the same as the one after it. It was the way his childhood was, and would be for quite a while.

When he was eighteen, he applied for a prestigious college on the East Coast and was accepted. He couldn't move out of his small hometown fast enough. It was in college he met his roommate and rival Silas Ziggurat. Like Doji, Silas had a beyblade, so the two of them settled arguments with bey battles as often as they settled them with debates. Silas always won the debates. Doji always won the battles.

It was during one of those battles that they were approached. A purple-haired man barely older than themselves walked up to the indent in the concrete they used for battling. "Interesting," he said distractedly, catching Doji's and Silas's attention. "You don't see many people your age beyblading."

"Yes? And what's it to you?" Silas snapped angrily. Doji took the opportunity to knock Spiral Capricorn into a stadium out. "Hey!"

Doji recalled his bey. "I won. You lost. What's there to contest?"

"Humph. I never took you for the cheating type, Doji."

"I didn't cheat! I simply took advantage of an opportunity to win."

"By attacking my bey while my back was turned?"

"You shouldn't have allowed yourself to be distracted in the first place."

"Boys, boys," the man said, speaking like they were children. "I'll admit what I did wasn't fair. So to make it up to you –" he reached into the folds of his cloak and whipped out a bey and launcher. "I'll have a battle against both of you." Doji and Silas exchanged glances. "I'm not too sure about this Doji," Silas whispered. "Should we really have a battle with him? We don't what he can do with that bey of his. We don't even know his _name_." Doji shrugged and readied his launcher. He had never fought anyone other than Silas, and he was curious to see how other bladers battled. "Why not? At the very least, it'll be interesting."

The three readied their beys. "Three! Two!" The stranger suddenly shouted. "One!"

"Wait, wait, wait, hold on!" Silas interrupted. "Just what are you counting down to anyways?"

The man looked surprised. "You mean you've never counted down to start a beybattle before? How do you two even manage to launch at the same time?"

Doji and Silas gave each other an uneasy glance and a shrug. "We just shout 'Ready, set, go' before launching," Doji admitted truthfully.

The stranger shook his head and muttered something that sounded suspiciously similar to "amateurs". "All right then, we'll do it your way for now," he said. "But I must really teach you two the proper way to battle later."

Doji's hackles shot up at that. Just who did this…impudent imbecile think he was, going on about the "proper way to battle" and all that? He and Silas had battled plenty of times already, thank you very much, and what they could do was more than adequate to mop the floor with this intruder. "Oh yeah? Perhaps me and Silas will be the ones giving a lesson to you on battling properly instead!" He readied his launcher. "Ready!"

Beside him Silas sighed, though he readied his own launcher as well. "It's 'Silas and I', not 'me and Silas'," he muttered. "Set!"

The purple-haired man smirked and readied his launcher. "Go!"

The three of them launched, and three beys landed on the concrete between them. "Wolf, attack!" Doji shouted. Dark Wolf raced down the slope and tackled the stranger's bey head-on. He hadn't meant it to be a serious attack – a few barrage attacks would suffice to gauge the opponent's power levels before retreating – but the red-and-silver easily repelled the blow before grinding against Wolf, pushing it towards the edge. "Wolf!" Doji shouted.

"Capricorn, charge it!" Silas shouted. Spiral Capricorn smashed into the stranger's bey, knocking it back enough for Wolf to escape. "That was too close," muttered Doji. "Silas, we need to retreat for now." _We've clearly underestimated this guy,_ he added mentally.

Silas scowled, but Capricorn joined Wolf in the center anyways. Their opponent's bey circled around them, like a shark trapping its prey. "I knew this was a bad idea," Silas whispered. "Now what do we do?"

Doji's brow furrowed as he concentrated. Dark Wolf DF145FS was a bey whose best traits were its defense, stamina, and overall balance. Spiral Capricorn, on the other hand, specialized more on attack. As for the other bey…Doji took a closer look at the red-silver bey. It had a round Fusion Wheel and wide Spin Track and Performance Tip, which could make it a defense-type. Then again, the way it had pushed Wolf back so easily showed it had a lot attack power as well. And the fact that it was racing around the battleground without slowing hinted at decent stamina as well. Was it a balance-type like his Wolf? Drat it, this would make it even harder to win!

"Doji," Silas warned, bringing him back to the present. "Capricorn and Wolf aren't spinning any faster." "I know, I know, just give me some time to think!" Doji snapped. They couldn't risk an endurance battle. Even if Wolf managed to outlast their opponent, Capricorn certainly wouldn't. Which meant their best option was offense. "Silas, I want you to attack that bey," Doji hissed. "Wear it down as much as you can. Once both beys have reached their limit, Wolf and I will end it with our Special Move. Understood?"

Silas nodded. "Got it. Go Capricorn!" The orange bey shot forward, crashing into the stranger's bey. "Push it back!" Silas shouted.

The stranger scoffed, unimpressed. "Is that really all you've got? Fusefire Darkhelm! Show them what true power looks like!" The red-and-silver bey – Fusefire Darkhelm – pressed back, pushing Capricorn towards the edge. "Capricorn!" Silas screamed. "Hang in there! Push it back!"

If a smile could look so twisted and cruel, Doji would have said the stranger smiled. "I applaud your efforts, but if that's all you can give me, then I don't see the point in letting this drag on any longer. Darkhelm!" The scream of metal on metal intensified as Darkhelm dealt more and more damage to Capricorn. If this kept up…

"Dark Wolf!" Doji shouted. He had to end this right now, before they lost. He closed his eyes and breathed in – _one, two, three, out_ – relishing in the power he felt every time he called their strongest attack. Pure energy raced through his veins as darkness pooled around Wolf, and Doji had to bite back the urge to howl at the moon. "Special Move!" he shouted as a dark pink aura surrounded him. "Darkness Howling Blazer!"

The shadows surrounding his bey collapsed into a black hole as the spirit of Dark Wolf rose, eyes glowing with battlelust. With a cry of triumph, it rushed forward, aiming straight for Fusefire Darkhelm. Wolf's jaws flickered with dark fire as it leapt, about to land the finishing blow. The stranger smirked. "Interesting. So you _do_ have some strength after all."

Darkhelm knocked Capricorn away, sending it flying into Wolf's mouth. Dark Wolf staggered as it was hit by its own ally. "Now – Fusefire Darkhelm! End this!" Darkhelm rushed into the black hole. There was an explosion. The next thing Doji knew Capricorn and Wolf were flying out of the stadium, embedding themselves in the far wall.

Doji collapsed to his knees while Silas ran to retrieve their beys. "H…How…" Darkness Howling Blazer was their strongest move. And he and Wolf had never lost. Ever. Not to Silas, or to Silas, or, or… Doji realized how pathetic his definition of strength was. Strength wasn't defeating one person over and over again, or attacking a cactus out of anger. Strength was completely dominating the battle, always staying three or four moves ahead of the other opponent, never letting any obstacle stay in the way for long.

"Doji?" He looked up, and Silas pressed Wolf into his hand. His poor bey was scratched and chipped in so many places, he didn't know if it could be repaired to 100%. Doji made himself stand up and look the stranger in the eye. "Just who…" he croaked, his throat dry. He swallowed and tried again. "Just who are you?"

The stranger grinned. "My name is Pluto," he said. "And I have a preposition for you two."

Pluto told them about King Hades, about the Black Sun and the Star Fragment. At first Doji and Silas didn't know what to make of it, even more when Pluto started talking about the history of beyblades. It was the talk of using an ancient and powerful bey – Proto Nemesis – to rewrite history and change the world that got Doji's attention. He wanted some of that power for himself. He wanted to completely blow the opponent away, just like Pluto could. Silas was harder to bring around, until Pluto brought up the idea of riches too numerous to count. As a scientist, one of the biggest problems Silas faced was securing enough funding for his research. With Pluto's organization behind him, he would never have to worry about money ever again.

The three of them made a pact right then and there. Together they would revive the God of Destruction, and the Black Sun would once more shine on Earth. Together, they would be the Three Pillars of Nemesis.

Pluto led a group of excavators and archeologists dedicated to studying the ancient ruins and finding Nemesis. Silas, with his major in Science & Engineering, stayed in America and began working to develop the Spiral Force needed to summon the Star Fragment. Eventually he would found Hades Inc., and later, HD Academy. Doji, with a major in Business & Entrepreneurship, moved to Japan. He founded the Dark Nebula, a company/organization dedicated to developing beys and spreading their use around the world.

He quickly made himself a household name in the beyblading community, funding several tournaments and mass-producing beys for the general public. With more accessible beys, beyblade's popularity around the globe increased sharply. Doji used the money made from producing all those beys and made a risky investment, helping the Beyblade Association expand to become the World Beyblade Association. It paid off greatly. Doji became an active board member with almost as much power as the Director himself, and the WBBA let his company run around with almost complete impunity. This was very good, as it let him investigate rumors of a Forbidden Bey without anyone poking a nose into his business.

It was while investigating these rumors that he met Sora's mother.

Hibiki was another follower of the God of Destruction. Normally the albino woman (so beautiful in real life, and even more so in Doji's memory) led an excavation team in Pluto's division, but she had been moved to Japan to help research the Forbidden Bey. They met…they fell in love…and one day Doji finally worked up the courage to get down on one knee and propose to her. She said yes, of course.

Back in the present, Doji lovingly traced a finger around the little boy in the picture, and then turned his gaze to Sora's battle video on the screen. They had a child after they married, before their work kept them so busy. _He has his mother's eyes,_ Doji thought wistfully. Sora had shown enthusiasm for beyblade at a young age, so Hibiki gave him his very own Cyber Pegasus (_oh the irony_) for him to play with. Sora couldn't quite control it (according to the video, he still couldn't) but he loved it more than anything else.

_Well…perhaps not _anything, Doji thought. Sora was devoted to his parents, and especially to his father. Some of Doji's happiest memories of his family were of taking a break from pinpointing locations and reading half-forgotten legends to battle his son, the Wolf teaching the Pegasus how to fight. Doji had to suppress a laugh at the memory of Sora in the bathroom when he was ten. He had been trying to dye his blond hair partially brown, "just like Dad"! The result was a terrible mess that prompted Doji and Hibiki to teach their son how to properly dye hair.

Doji chuckled and tugged on the strand of yellow hair hanging over his forehead. He remembered when _he _first dyed his own hair. It had been a few months after he and Hibiki began dating. Doji felt that he stood out too much in Japan, so he went to the store and bought some brown hair dye. (The store was out of black.) The dying was successful, save for a single strand of hair that escaped. Hibiki had laughed and kissed that strand when he pointed out to her. "I like it," she said. "It's cute." He hadn't changed it since.

_Oh, Hibiki…_

Doji closed his eyes and tried to ignore the burning behind his eyelids. A few weeks after Sora dyed his hair, Hibiki led a team of archeologists into an underground tunnel in South America to dig for clues about Nemesis. There'd been a cave-in. Of the twenty archeologists that went in, only six came out.

Hibiki wasn't one of them.

Doji's thoughts were interrupted by Merci. "Yu, Dan and Reiki, the Kumade brothers, Tobio, and Tetsuya are all doing well in training, Master. Tsubasa is also doing very well, and while he seems to be keeping to himself, he has not done anything suspicious yet."

"Good. Thank you, Merci." Doji waited for Merci to "leave", but the AI went on. "Master Ryuga is also doing very well. He has completed the obstacle course in a new record of 29.96 seconds."

"Ah." Ryuga. How could have forgotten? "Yes, that _is_ good to hear, Merci. We must have Ryuga in top form for our plans. See to it that he keeps up the good work."

"_Oui_, Master." Only then was Merci gone. Doji sighed. After Hibiki died, he threw himself into his work, doubling his efforts to find the Forbidden Bey and a proper blader for it. He _had_ to. For Nemesis. For Silas and Pluto. For himself. For Hibiki. For Sora. They needed Ryuga and L-Drago to revive Nemesis; that was how he and Ziggurat and Pluto had planned it. Once Ryuga and L-Drago absorbed all the power they needed from Battle Bladers, they would go to America and power the machine that Ziggurat built to create the Spiral Force. The Spiral Force would bring down the Star Fragment, which Pluto then would use to revive Nemesis. It was a flawless plan. All they needed – all _Doji_ needed – was time.

Doji growled and slammed his fist on the desk. Ziggurat hadn't stopped bragging how he had completed the Spiral Core and set up HD Academy long before Doji was finished with Ryuga, even though Doji's part of the plan was supposed to happen first. As if it were Doji's fault. He had pushed the deadline as close as he could without the WBBA complaining that he wasn't giving bladers enough time to reach the 50,000 bey-point mark. Not to mention the fact that the retrieval of L-Drago had caused some…_complications_…that set them back until Ryuga woke his coma.

Doji paused and let the memory of that night play itself through. He and Ryuga approached Mt. Hagane via helicopter and entered the volcano, where Ryuga bypassed all the traps and took L-Drago for himself. The villagers wouldn't let them go that easily, however. One man (Gingka's father, Doji now remembered, the one who gave Gingka his Pegasus) was foolhardy enough to enter the volcano and battle Ryuga for the Forbidden Bey. The man lost of course, and was killed by a rockslide. What Doji hadn't expected was for Ryuga to collapse as well, his energy depleted by L-Drago. Doji barely managed to get the two of them out of there in time.

But Gingka's father hadn't made it. And it was because of that Gingka was so determined to defeat Ryuga and the Dark Nebula. For once Doji felt a stab of pity for his enemy, as well as fear as his son Sora. Now that Hibiki was gone, Sora and Doji only had each other. If anything happened to Doji, then Sora would be all alone.

Doji scowled and clenched his hands into fists. Drat it, he was doing this for Sora! Once Battle Bladers was over, once Nemesis was revived, the three of them – he, Ziggurat, Pluto – would create a new and better world, and usher in a new era of beyblade. All he had to do was to get Ryuga powerful enough to fulfill their ambitions.

Doji's mouth twisted into a wry grin. Ryuga was both the solution and the problem. If it hadn't been for Ryuga, Sora would still be with Doji instead of traveling the country preparing for Battle Bladers.

It happened almost two and a half years after Hibiki died, and about a month after Ryuga took L-Drago. That day Doji chose to bring Sora to his workplace, for two reasons: one, Doji felt it was high time Sora learned what important work his father did, and two, Doji was feeling uneasy about leaving Sora home alone for so long, especially without his mother around.

Doji had given his 12-year-old son a complete tour of the Dark Nebula headquarters, from the meeting rooms where analytics discussed profit margins (which Sora was not interested in) to the design rooms where new models of DN Beyblades were being tested (which Sora was very interested in). Finally, as they were passing by the last hall in the building, Sora just had to stop at the one door Doji didn't want to explain to him, the door that stated "Restricted: Only Authorized Personnel Beyond This Point". The door that led to a comatose Ryuga.

He tried to dissuade him, of course. "There's nothing there," Doji had said. "Now come on, let's get going."

But Sora insisted, claiming he heard strange noises inside. Finally Doji relented and the two entered. "Well, this is it. What do you think, Sora?" But his son didn't reply. Sora was too busy ogling the boy inside the chamber. Finally the Cyber blader spoke. "Dad, who _is_ that?"

Doji sighed and bent down until he was eye-to-eye with Sora. He had to explain this very carefully. To the outsider it looked like the Dark Nebula was committing crime after crime, but Sora had to understand that the new world was worth it, that the end justified the means.

So Doji explained it to him. He told Sora the plans of Dark Nebula, HD Academy, and Pluto. He explained how in order to create a better world and bring about a new era of beyblade, they needed to revive Nemesis. In order to revive Nemesis they needed the Star Fragment. In order to obtain the Star Fragment, they needed the Spiral Force. To have the Spiral Force, they needed Ryuga and L-Drago at full strength. And Doji explained just how badly L-Drago needed strength, as just one use (though Doji didn't tell Sora was the use was, Sora wouldn't understand that lives had be sacrificed for the betterment of humanity) had left Ryuga in a coma.

"Do you understand?" Doji asked him after he finished. Sora nodded, wide-eyed and awed by the super-important job his father had. "So the Dark Nebula needs strong bladers so Ryuga can get better and help save the world?" Sora asked.

Doji smiled and nodded. "That's it, more or less."

"Then I'm going to get real good with Cyber so I can help make a better world too!" Doji smiled. "Of course." If only he'd known what would happen next.

The next day Sora was gone. Doji searched their entire apartment for him, and was about to call the police when he spied a note on Sora's pillow. It read:

_Dear Dad:_

_If you're reading this, then you're probably really worried about where I am. Sorry! But really, don't worry about me. After what you said about needing Ryuga to revive Nemesis and create a better world, I decided to help out too! The Dark Nebula needs lots of strong bladers to save the world, so I've gone out on a training journey with Cyber to become strong myself. I'm going to find the best bladers in all of Japan, and if they'll let me I'll become their apprentice, so I can learn how to be great like them. And once I'm really strong I'll come back home so I can help save the world too! I can't wait for that day, Dad!_

_Love,_

_Sora_

Doji still kept the note in his secret pocket, next to the photo of him, Sora, and Hibiki.

Doji sighed and replayed Sora's battle video. Sora stayed true to his word; he was currently tracking down the up-and-coming Gingka Hagane. While it irked Doji to see his son idolizing the very person who wanted to destroy the Dark Nebula, the feeling passed as soon as it came. It wasn't like it was Sora's fault. He didn't know the full story. _I'll tell him someday,_ Doji promised. _But later. After the new world is created, so he will understand it was worth the price._

A beeping sound brought his attention to his messages. He'd gotten a new e-mail from Silas Ziggurat, asking when Ryuga and L-Drago would be ready so they could move on with the next step. Doji rolled his eyes and typed out a short response, saying that they would be ready at the end of Battle Bladers. And if Ziggurat wanted to know when _that_ was, he could direct his attention to the numerous WBBA broadcasts instead of pestering him for information. Doji hit Send and sighed. What had happened to them? Back in college, he and Silas had been the best of friends and rivals. Now they barely had a nice word to say to each other. Doji didn't even refer to Ziggurat by his first name anymore. It was the stress, he decided. Bringing about a new world wasn't easy. Once everything was complete, things would be much easier. He was sure of it. Right now everyone was just too busy to be nice.

And Doji had been very busy. After Sora left, he had dedicated himself to the Dark Nebula, more determined than ever to do his part as one of the Three Pillars of Nemesis. One of the first things he did was find more powerful bladers who might be interested in joining the Dark Nebula. It was one of the reasons he followed that tip that led him to Kyoya Tategami of the Face Bladers. Shame that he ended up joining Gingka, though. He could have been something great in the Dark Nebula. Oh well, his loss.

(_it wasn't because he'd been hurting after losing Sora, and not because he couldn't ignore a boy who needed a guiding light when Sora was out there all alone, and certainly not because he'd seen something so very like himself in Kyoya, someone who thought himself the strongest because he had never been beaten before, and not because he'd wanted to do the same for him that Pluto had done for him, no, no, certainly not, absolutely not that_)

Doji slipped the photo back into his pocket, behind the note and right over his heart. "Merci?" he called out.

There was a short moment of silence before Merci answered. "Yes, Master?"

"There is a boy named Sora Akatsuki. I just watched his battle video. Do not allow him to gain over 50,000 bey-points."

"_Oui_, Master." Thankfully Merci rarely asked questions. Doji sat back in his chair with a contented sigh. If he and Sora were to be kings and princes in the new world, Doji certainly couldn't let his son be offered up to L-Drago. People who knew that Doji had a family (which were very few) always considered Sora as Hibiki's son – same eyes, same smile, same enthusiastic approach to everything. But Doji liked to believe Sora took after him as well. They had the same hair, to begin with. And in a sense, they were both dreamers who chased after their dreams with ruthless passion.

Doji chuckled and pressed a button on his desk. Moments later his butler appeared with a wine glass and orange juice (his and Sora's favorite drink) in hand. The butler poured the orange juice into the glass before bowing respectfully and leaving. Once the butler was gone, Doji picked up the glass and raised it.

"To the new world," he toasted. "And all that it will bring with it." He took a sip of orange juice. "Mmm. Absolutely delightful."


End file.
